I continued to hyperventilate my way through the wrestling season. I hyperventilated in Cortland, hyperventilated again in Waterloo, then hyperventilated again at Holland Patent. (They nearly called an ambulance for me in Holland Patent.) Along the way, I had the opportunity to perform thorough inspections of the rafters of all the gymnasiums in the Central and Eastern New York State areas. Night after night I stood next to referees who raised my opponents’ arms. The thing they never tell you about the arm-raising thing is this: the referee not only holds up one guy’s arm, but he also sort of holds down the other guy’s arm. I despised having my arm held down like that. It always seemed completely unnecessary to me.
But “The Hyperventilator” of the Tri-Valley League–which is what my nickname should have been–had also tasted victory. No matter that all of those wins so far–save one which I’ll tell you about in a minute–were forfeits. Let me tell you, there was nothing finer, nothing more sublime, than riding the bus to a nearby school, getting dressed with the team, watching my teammates “go to war” (the coach’s words) out there on the mat, while I sat back, hands behind my head, waiting for the moment when I would be called upon.
When it was my time, I’d stand, take off my robe, put on my headgear, then walk to the center of the mat where no opponent would be waiting for me. The referee would raise my arm. I’d get the win, my team would collect the points, I’d collect perfunctory backslaps from my teammates, and we’d gather our belongings and bus it back home.
Ah, the bittersweet taste of undeserved glory. This is what lottery winners, I’d imagine, must experience on a much greater scale.
My sole legitimate win during the early days of the season came against an out of shape 11th grader who, like me, had no doubt been sold on wrestling as an exercise in collecting forfeits. We both must have worn stunned looks on our faces during our match, each of us shocked and disappointed to find ourselves having to actually “go to war” for a change instead of collecting the fake victories we felt entitled to.
I could tell almost immediately that the 11th grader was even more scared and pathetic than I was. When I scored a takedown in the opening minute, I threw all of my weight on top of the guy. He collapsed underneath me like the Hindenburg, minus the flames. Air rushed out of him in massive quantities.
I was suddenly enraged at this guy. All the anger and embarrassment that I’d felt towards myself was redirected towards him. I kept thinking, Do something, dummy! Stand up for yourself! Fight, you piece of s***! Don’t you realize how terrible I am at this? You could win!
But he didn’t. Instead, he just kind of groveled there on the mat. I managed to work him into a cradle, basically bringing one of his knees to his forehead and flipping him over on his back. He squirmed and made huffing noises. Now he was the one looking up at the rafters. Now he was the one listening to the referee slap the mat near his ear. Now, after the pin, he was the one who was having his arm forcibly held down while mine was held up.
“What happened to your allergies tonight?” the coach asked when I came off the mat.
I told him that I had no idea.
Now, onto level 2-12. It’s time for another once-every-four-levels showdown with D.K. himself. This one is pretty straight forward. There’s nothing here that we haven’t already seen before. Let’s begin.
D.K. hurls barrels from the central platform of the three tiered level. The barrels travel in great arcs through the air, then wend their way to the bottom tier of the level like pachinko balls. Once they reach the bottom, they automatically upright themselves. There each barrel will sit until an ensuing barrel arrives to destroy it and take its place…or Mario arrives to claim the barrel as his own.
Once I have a barrel in hand (PRO TIP: stand on top, press the B button, and the barrel is all yours) I use the nearby super spring to leap up to the second tier of the level. Super springs, for the record, are like normal springs on steroids. Side note: How did we used to describe things that iterated in larger sizes before the phrase “on steroids” came into being? I honestly can’t remember.
At the highest point in my barrel-carrying jump on the super spring, I toss the barrel at Donkey Kong. It strikes him in the thigh region. He does his I’m-dizzy dance for a few seconds, stars circling his head, before he resumes tossing barrels. “Tossing barrels,” by the way, would be a great euphemism for something sexual or disgusting, or perhaps both.
Meanwhile, I am already back on the bottom tier, claiming another upright barrel, because I’m in a no-bulls*** kind of mood this morning. Once I’ve struck D.K. in the thigh region three times in total, he pounds the ground in frustration, grabs Pauline, then climbs offscreen. The final results for this section of stage two:
Level 2-9: 107 seconds
Level 2-10: 89 seconds
Level 2-11: 42 seconds
Level 2-12: 52 seconds (today’s level)
Total: 290 seconds.
We’re finally leaving FOREST behind. My stats at the end of FOREST: 13 spare Marios and a score of 72,300 points. Next stop: a new set of levels called “SHIP.”
